The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-08-28
DBFORMED WOMEN.
Scarcity ofP erfect Forms-Some Point
About the English Figure.

Idi1by Utlsin u NulUt CIOhs lClLJ IdNCo bC-
long to New York girls as a part of the or
binary courtesy of nature. Beautiful women
SO far as hair, and lips and eyes can con-
tribute to beauty, are not uncommon sights,
but grace, or even symmetry of figure, is
among society girls or shop girls practi-
cally unknown Five women out of ten
whom one passes on the street are de-
formed
August is a good month in which to study
the female form divine. Thick clothing is
an impossibility., Wraps of all descriptions
are cast aside. In the cotton gown, which
fashion has decreed shall be as closefitting
and as severe in its outlines as its wooden,
tailor-made model, no amount of padding
and no make up, however ingenious, can
disguise certain facts which are patent to
everybody with eyes.
The average New York girl has two
strong points-her head and her hands.
The head is well shaped and well set upon
the shoulders. 1t is not large, but is alert
in every turn and movement. 1t impreSses
the observer as belonging to sensitive, in
telligent, highly civilized type, whether he
sees the face or confines his view TO the tip
of the ear and the coils of the hair. The
hands have grown progressively better since
| tight gloves went out and out of door
exercise came in. As rule they are not
plump enough to be positively pretty, but
| tennis and archery have given them a
more muscular, healthy, disable look than
their pallid predecessors of a dozen years
ago.
But the figure. That is q cultivated prod
uct, and as compared with the wild growth
gives one a curious idea of the feminine agri-
culturists who have taken its training in
hand. One has to reckon, in the first place,
with the designed, and in the second place
with the accidental That is one has to take
into account the conventional shape which
the girl tries to model herself into and the
various notifications of that shape brought
about by the manner of life, work, exercise,
etc. AS basis for the various eXigencies
of life to work themselves out upon, the
| New York girl for four or five years past
has started with Mrs. Langtry. There
never was figure exhibited in New York
| that became more popular or more widely
| initiated than the Langtry figure, and.
allowing for the faint touch of caricature
that marks an imitation as distinguished
| from the original, and sometimes for the
| broader caricature that shows the differ
| ence between dress education and non-edu-
| cation there are some thousands of dupli-
Gates of the Langtry waist and shoulders
| walking about the streets to-day. The
Lily's neck is beautiful but her shape is
English, and bad English, and the copies
pAOOo
material naturally eXaggerate its worst
points.
A good example of the second hand Lily
was one of the throng of workers that
poured out of o big dry goods store at clos
ing hour last night She was sunset head
ed belle, 20 years old or Whereabouts, good
looking, neatly dressed and very like her
original in natural figure and superinduced
build. As looked at her, her shoulders,
though really small, seemed of dispropor-
tionate size The shoulder blades, through
dress necessities, were pushed out at an
| angle and the shoulders forced forward,
| giving a tilted prominence to the whole up
per part of the body The chest was a
| trifle fiat. The waist was six or eight inches
| too small and unnaturally round. Across
the bust ran the prominent line that marked
| the corset top, and from this point to the
| waist line the body was as unrespoDsive to
muscle movements, as rigid and almost as
much beyond its owners control as if 1t had
been nodded out of dead clay. The hips
were too large. With the swaying of the
draperies the swish and swing of the extern
sive hustle the figure gave the impression of
being insecurely fastened in the middle, and
one involuntarily hoped the hinge might
not give way and the thing break in two.
The probabilities are that her calves would
have showed bad garter marks and
that she would not have barred her feet,
except in strictest privacy, for good round
sum.
This English figure is very general work
ing pattern and sometimes, passing a cluster
of girls on the pavements who have given
many years to its cultivation, one guess at
the every day habits that have brought
about individual peculiarities differentiat-
ing figure and adding special to general de-
formity An English waist on a girl who
doesn't take much exercise is apt to remain
closest to the average type. Long thin arms
are the only characteristic in such cases adj
ded. An English figure at a clerks copyists,
or stenographer's desk always gets one
shoulder and sometimes one whole side of
the figure higher than the other But it Is
| the athletic girl, the new type of girl who
goes in for pretty nearly all the sports her
brother takes up, who is, if she has previ-
ously cultivated her figure, the worst de
formed girl of ALL There is nothing like
athletics and corsets, mixed or in alternate
doses to bring out the possibilities of curves
twists, and abnormal developments in a
modern girl. All British femininity is at
present engaged in screaming contradic-
tons at Labouchere, because he had the
harihood to declare that tennis playing girls
were crooked. In half dozen groups at
the Central Park yesterday, | picked out
four players whose right shoulders were
noticeably of different shape from the loft,
and six or seven in whom the same thing
though less obvious had begun TO manifest
itself, the summer exertion charging the
muscles and light clothing thrusting them
out of place and accentuating the uneven
development of the body. Girls who row in
corsets are a curious sight, the extra mus
cuar delelopment all taking place high up
where the blood has chance to circulate
and making the shoulders tower above the
rest of the body.
When l see woman who is not deformed
mark the day with a red letter. Mrs.
| Tom Thumb the Countess Magrie they call
her now, enjoys the distinction of being the
only svmmetrically shaped midget. The
| women of full size who have bodies whose
lines a sculptor would care to copy without
alteration occupy positions almost as unique.
Miss Alice Freeman has owed much of her
| success at Wellesley to the fact that she is a
| magnificent specimen OF womanhood physi-
cally, finely formed and commanding re-
| spect by her control Of her bodily powers
| No whalebones creak when she walks Maria
| Mitchell, the astronomer. with her white
hairs, would shame many younger women
with her perfect physique Mrs Jenness
Miller, the new dress reformer, will succeed,
il she succeeds. because she is herself har-
mony from top TO toe in every line. Miss
Grace II. Dodge the School Commissions,
has one of the best figures in New York.
One can see splended figures in Castle Gar
den any day in the week, but they nevor ap-
hana.,ea tha